In this article Should Web Design become a regulated profession Micheal Nutley makes some interesting observations about web design + accessibility. Compared to 1997, there's much more required today in designing a website than knocking something together on a wysisyg editor. And he's absolutely right in this. Accessibility issues and user experience play increasingly important roles in modern websites. But I'm not certain that comparing web design to architecture is right though - even the author admits that "No-one would suggest that the consequences of bad Web site design are as dangerous as those of bad building design" so really the comparison boils down to one "design" profession who is regulated and one who is not.
Should we be regulated? If so by how much?
Mechanics are regulated, yet there's no guarantee that your licenced mechanic is a good one. What guarantee will there be for you that your licensed web designer is a good one?
If the goal of certification is to manage a list of acceptable web designers then I think regulating the profession won't work.
For example, let's compare web design with another industry completely, like auto mechanics. They too are regulated (licenced) however, I'm sure most of us have run into both extremes - the good and the bad. The bad will keep you coming back time and again (whether through incompetance or lack of ethics) for fixes. Same with bad web design. Your web strategy will fail, targets won't be met and you'll have complaints - all of which will end up with you coming back time and again to your designer. In the worst case, you'll be sued for an inaccessible site.
Being regulated, being licensed, is really only a way for those outside a profession to recognize those who have learned their craft enough to be accepted or acknowledged by other members of their craft.
To some extent in web design we are already regulated. We have a standards body (W3C) and tools to help us check for accessibility issues. So the licensed web designer would be one who makes sure the site meets standards for accessibility. It's relatively simple to test designs for standards by simply running them through validators and accessibility checkers. Since anyone can follow a set of rules to meet the requirements of standards, certification to this point would be a little short off the mark. Maybe at this point one would call themselves a web-builder.
So is it enough to just meet the requirements of standards or shall we take that extra step and delight the user as well? The user experience web designer will roll the standards compliant site into an attractive and pleasing package for the user. And this is what we call a web-designer
Should our profession be regulated? In my opinion no. Should web-designers be certified in their profession? There are arguments for this, particularly if certification in a profession requires the professional (web-designer) to keep up their knowledge and skills and keep abreast of technology by taking courses every year. I know it can be very difficult to learn new things about your profession when you get caught up in the grind of daily work. You become reliant on current skills and forget to seek out and learn new technologies. And if you're not moving forward you're falling behind. So let's focus on certification as a tool to motivate web-designers to progress in their profession and leave the regulatory bodies out of the picture.
